Alex wrote:
>> In fact, I'm not sure libraries are *so* special we shouldn't look to
non-library systems for much of our stuff. Why is aqusitions
>> (sp?) so important to all our ILS? Because ILS normally are terrible
at communicating and connecting with other systems. (Which
>> makes you wonder why that web-services initiative across vendors have
gone nowhere. Maybe they simply don't *want* to?)
My personal experience it isn't libraries (necessarily) who don't want
to work with other systems for acquisitions, and it isn't that this is
being held up by the library systems or their vendors. I'd like to see
our library system work with our Universities general ordering/invoicing
system - however, I've never got any feeling that our finance dept sees
this as a priority (or that their system would cope particularly well
with the level of ordering we do in the library - i.e. many unique low
cost items). I've also got other priorities, so I'm not forcing this
issue either. As our finance dept seemingly still requires everything on
paper, and we've had to get a 'special' agreement to be able to use EDI,
I'm not sure that they are ready to provide what we need...
I'm convinced the reason our ILS doesn't have an interface to an
alternative acquisitions system isn't because the system vendors have an
agenda here, but because we've (libraries) never prioritised this as
something we want.
Owen
Received on Tue May 01 2007 - 04:48:58 EDT